Eastern Approaches

by Fitzroy MacLean

  Half an hour’s driving brought us to the outer fringe of the oasis. A little wind was stirring the palms; the sky was limpid. Still we saw nothing. We were wondering what to do next when the familiar sound of aircraft engines fell on our ears. Looking to the horizon, we saw three bombers flying straight towards us in formation. We had barely had time to get the jeeps under cover of the palms, when they were over us. Looking up we could see that they bore German markings.

  Simultaneously it occurred to us that here was a simple means of finding out by whom the oasis was held. If the Germans bombed it, we could safely assume that it was in the hands of our own troops. If, on the other hand, they landed, or dropped supplies, or did nothing, we should know that it was still held by the enemy.

  The bombers took a run over the oasis, flying so low over the palm trees that from our hiding-place we could see the faces of the pilot and rear-gunner. We watched them intently. Nothing happened. From where we were we could see through the palm trees the flat sand of the landing-strip, empty save for the wreck of a fighter. If they landed now we should have ringside seats; in fact, we should have to do some very quick thinking.

  As we watched, they circled out over the desert and came back a second time. Once again they flew over us at a low altitude and disappeared over the palm trees. Then, just as we were beginning to give up hope, came the crash and roar of three sticks of bombs. I had never thought that I should derive such pleasure from the sound of German bombs bursting in my immediate vicinity.

  The attack was short and sharp and soon the three aircraft, having dropped their bombs, turned and flew off again towards the north, leaving the coast clear for us to make contact with our friends of the Sudan Defence Force, for we felt now certain that they must be in possession of the oasis. Rising above the palm trees, about half a mile away, we could see the little Italian fort which forms the centre of Jalo, and thither we prepared to go, licking our lips at the thought of the abundance of food and drink which awaited us there. The Sudan Defence Force always lived well, and there would be captured Italian rations too.

  We had already scrambled back into the jeeps and were starting up the engines when a new and, at this juncture, unexpected sound fell on our ears: the screeching of a salvo of shells. As we watched, they burst fair and square on the fort. At this, the comfortable certainty which we had derived from the hostile behaviour of the German aircraft that had just flown off gave way to fresh doubts. If the Sudan Defence Force had, as we assumed, captured the fort, how was it that there was any enemy left to shell them? We decided that we should be wise to investigate the situation further before driving up to the fort for breakfast.

  All this had happened so quickly that we had hardly had time to look round. A closer inspection of our surroundings now revealed a solitary Arab half-heartedly tilling an unpromising-looking vegetable patch some distance away under the palm trees. I walked over and engaged him in conversation. I was, I told him in a mixture of Italian, troops’ Arabic and dumb-crambo, anxious to know who was in the fort. ‘Taliani,’ he replied succinctly, with evident contempt for one so ill-informed about local events. ‘And what,’ I asked, ‘about the English.’ ‘The English,’ he said, ‘tried to get in several days ago.’ ‘And now,’ he added, turning back to his digging, as a shrill whistling announced the arrival of another salvo of shells, ‘they are trying again.’

  This made things much clearer. We were, it appeared, occupying part of the Italian advanced positions and under heavy fire from our own side. The Italians themselves had wisely evacuated these positions at some earlier stage of the encounter. The sooner we followed their example the better it would be for us.

  But this was easier said than done. A fair number of shorts and overs were coming our way, making the shallow, rather smelly little trenches in which we found ourselves no place for a rest cure. But, on the other hand, the sudden appearance of two stray jeeps silhouetted on the skyline would have provided a heaven-sent target to all concerned. We decided that we would have to stay where we were for the time being and wait for a lull in the proceedings.

  Time passed slower than ever in our new surroundings and we became painfully aware of hunger and thirst. My friend the Arab seemed the only possible source of refreshment. Once again I made my way over to him, this time rather more cautiously than before, for things were beginning to warm up round us, and opened negotiations. The first thing was to find out where he kept his water supply. It turned out that there was a well in the sand by the side of his allotment. Lying on the sand, with the help of an old leather bucket and a long bit of string, I managed in a short time to pull up enough water to fill two large water-bottles. The slimy, brackish liquid thus produced seemed more delicious than vintage champagne. At any rate the water problem was solved for the time being.

  I next asked him whether he could sell us anything to eat. Always a man of few words, he pointed to a bright green vegetable marrow growing at his feet. ‘Any eggs?’ I said. ‘No,’ he said. It was only too clear that the vegetable marrow was all that we were going to get; and eventually it changed hands for a thousand lire note. It was not cheap, but it was the smallest note I had and one could hardly expect change in the circumstances. Carrying it as proudly as if it had won a prize at the Crystal Palace, I started back to the jeeps by a suitably circuitous route. On the way I filled my pockets with unripe dates off the date palms. We had all the makings of a feast.

  We had scarcely sat down to breakfast when a fierce controversy broke out over our plat de résistance. My own claim that it was a vegetable marrow was brushed scornfully aside by Sandy, who said that he knew that it was a cucumber. On being told that cucumbers did not grow to that size, he said that anyone who knew anything about vegetables could see that it was a tropical cucumber. Nettled by this I retorted rather unjustly that anyone who knew anything at all could see that he was nothing but a city slicker whose knowledge of the country was derived solely from the low suburban race courses which he frequented.

  Prolonged lack of food and drink is apt to fray the nerves. Our tempers were not at their best, and we both felt by now that we could have cheerfully used up our remaining strength in fighting each other over the identity of the rather sad-looking vegetable which lay between us, cut up into unappetizing green slices already covered with sand and flies. Fortunately a breach of the peace was avoided thanks to Sergeant Seekings, the only real agricultural expert of the party, who drew the fire of both parties by suggesting that the object of our controversy must be a kind of pumpkin, a diagnosis so manifestly outrageous that Sandy and I sank our differences in a united but entirely unsuccessful attempt to persuade Seekings that he was talking nonsense. Not long after eating it, whatever it was, we were all attacked by the most violent stomach ache. Altogether it was an unsatisfactory vegetable.

  While awaiting our chance to make a dash for it, we took turns at reading a volume of admirable short stories by the late Damon Runyon, which Sandy had brought with him. The sufferings of Good-time Charley, Harry the Horse and the rest of them at the hands of less peaceable characters helped to distract our thoughts from our own predicament. But two stories made painful reading. One contained an account of an eating competition; the other concerned a character whose favourite drink was ‘Rock candy and rye whisky, without the rock candy.’ What, we reflected sadly, could we not have done at that moment with some rye whisky, or, for that matter (for we were not fussy) with some rock candy, whatever that might be.

  It was some time before a suitable opportunity to leave our hide-out presented itself. When it did, we lost no time in decamouflaging the jeeps and getting under way. Once we were clear of the trees we drove as hard as we could and managed to get away unpursued.

  From where we were we had been able to form a pretty good idea of the approximate position of the attacking force, and thither we now made our way after taking a fairly wide sweep out into the desert before approaching. The first thing we saw was a number of blazing trucks, set on
fire by bombing or gun-fire. Vainly trying to fight the flames, we found one of the S.D.F. officers who told us the whole story.

  Just as we had done at Benghazi, the S.D.F. had approached their objective to find the entire garrison of Jalo sitting waiting for them at their machine guns behind a new and well-placed minefield, clearly expecting to be raided. In spite of this, they had managed to fight their way inside the fort, but had been thrown out again with heavy losses. They had subsequently withdrawn and reassembled their force, and now, after shelling the Italians all day, and being shelled back in return, were preparing to make a fresh assault on the fort, as soon as it got dark. In this they invited us to join them. We said that there was nothing we should like better and, if they would give us some food and water we would go and collect the rest of our party in time for the evening’s proceedings. They accordingly provided us with a supply of bully beef and biscuits, and we drove off in triumph, Seekings and I with an open tin of bully between us, at which we took alternate stabs with my teaspoon.

  But, by the time that we had found the main party and joined up once again with the Sudan Defence Force, there had been a fresh development, necessitating a further change of plans. The S.D.F. had received over their wireless a signal from G.H.Q., M.E., of which the first paragraph ordered them to abandon the idea of making a further assault on Jalo and to return to base forthwith. This in itself was disappointing.

  The reason for the decision, however, which was contained in a second paragraph, delighted no less than it surprised us. Strategically, we were told, our respective operations, which to us had seemed from a tactical point of view such dismal failures, had already achieved their main object. For they had caused the enemy to divert from the front disproportionately large numbers of aircraft and troops, which would otherwise have been used to counter certain operations now being undertaken by Eighth Army. These, as we learned later, were the preliminary moves which were to culminate soon after in the grand attack on Rommel’s lines at El Alamein.

  Thus, seen as part of a larger canvas, the decision of G.H.Q. to stick to the original time-table, come what might, at last became comprehensible. I was reminded of my Sergeant Instructor’s admonition in the early days at Inverness. As he had said, we were nothing but —ing cogs in a gigantic —ing organization. On our eventual return to civilization we were gratified to find ourselves and our operation described in the popular press in such glowing terms as to be scarcely recognizable.

  Meanwhile a third paragraph of the signal contained some other news which was of immediate interest to us. We had, it appeared, been successful in diverting, not only enemy aircraft and infantry, but a column of armoured cars, which were even now scouring the desert for us. In the light of this information, the order which we had received to withdraw seemed a good deal more sensible and we pressed on with our preparations for departure. These were simple. With several trucks still blazing in the dusk and a machine gun rattling half-heartedly from the fort, we collected some dates from the surrounding palm trees; drew from the nearest well as much water as we could carry; borrowed from the S.D.F. all the petrol and rations they could spare, and then, piling back into our jeeps and trucks, formed ourselves into column and drove off again southwards into the gathering dusk.

  Our encounter with the S.D.F. had made it possible for us to go on; but only just. After we had pooled all the available petrol and rations between us, it still seemed uncertain whether there would be enough to carry both units safely back to Kufra. There would certainly be no marked improvement in our standard of living, and bully beef would still have to be doled out by the spoonful. Water, on the other hand, was more plentiful than it had been for a long time, and there was every prospect of finding more en route.

  With aircraft and armoured cars about, it was advisable to put as many miles as possible between ourselves and Jalo before dawn. There was no moon, and, to save time, we decided to take the risk of being spotted and using our headlights, to drive as fast as we could.

  My recollections of that night’s journey are dim but wholly unpleasant. A few yards ahead, illuminated by the red glare of the tail lamp, and, as it were, suspended in mid-air, the bearded, sand-blanched faces of the men huddled on the back of the jeep in front of us jerked and jolted before our eyes, like puppets in a peep-show. The soft sand billowed up, and, in the glare of the headlights formed itself into fantastic shapes. Hunger and exhaustion helping, we seemed to be travelling through a constantly shifting landscape. Suddenly you could fancy that your headlights were lighting up, not a strip of desert, but a narrow lane bounded by high walls or hedges, with overhanging trees and, here and there, houses. Sooner or later you found that your eyes were focusing themselves irresistibly on some one point in this nonexistent countryside and that you yourself were drifting further and further from reality, until a sudden jolt brought you back to consciousness. Then, if you were driving, it was high time to hand over the wheel to someone else, and climb on to the back, there to doze uneasily, every now and then clutching wildly at the guns to save yourself from being pitched off.

  First light found us amongst surroundings no less fantastic than the imaginary landscape of the night. We were in the middle of a kind of desert archipelago. The desert was flat and sandy, like the sea floor. From it rose abruptly a group, as it were, of islands, with cliffs towering above our heads, the summits crowned with startlingly unfamiliar greenery, shrubs and even small trees. Against the dazzling blue of the sky and the white expanse of sand, the scene recalled early representations of the Thebaid; at any moment you expected to see hermits and demons start from the caves which here and there dotted the sides of these strange little hills. Insects of all kinds abounded. Yet nowhere was there any sign of water. The place must have been all that remained of a dying oasis, somehow deprived of the water supplies to which it owed its origin. The maps showed no trace of it.

  Here we spent the day, undisturbed by the enemy, the shade of the high overhanging cliffs providing ideal hiding-places for the trucks. Sleep was a less easy matter. Immediately on our arrival the insects, their appetites sharpened by a lifetime of privation, and now roused at the prospect of an undreamed-of feast, came hopping, crawling and flying out to greet us. The rest of our stay was spent in unavailing attempts to fight them off.

  At dusk we ate our food; shared our once again dwindling supply of water with the thirsty radiators of our trucks, and set off. That night’s drive was a repetition of our journey of the night before; the same struggle to keep awake at the wheel, the same, sharply illuminated clouds of dust playing tricks with the imagination, the same halts while your own or someone else’s puncture was repaired. Just before dawn we halted for an hour’s sleep, and then, deciding that we were far enough south to risk travelling by day, set off again once more, following this time the line of beacons set up before the war by the Italian authorities to mark the route from newly captured Kufra to Jalo and the coast. Here and there little heaps of bleaching bones were proof that for many generations caravans to and from the interior of the continent had passed the same way.

  Towards evening we reached Zighen and the oasis of Bir Harash, to find the S.D.F. already installed there. To us this fly-infested patch of scrub in the middle of a howling wilderness seemed a veritable outpost of civilization. Not only were there unlimited supplies of brackish water to drink, but in the remote past some visiting patrol of the L.R.D.G. had amused themselves by opening up one of the wells, and, with the aid of some flattened petrol cans, converted it into a tin-lined bathing pool. Here, sharing our ablutions with a crowd of splashing Sudanese, our feet slipping in the slime on the bottom, we indulged in the nearest approach to a wash that we had had for some time.

  The remainder of our homeward journey was relatively plain sailing. There was no longer any doubt that our supplies of food, water and petrol would see us through, and, as the distance from the coast grew greater, the danger of interference from the enemy grew less, although we kept a sharp lo
ok out for aircraft and in fact a few days later a sharp bombing attack caused considerable damage and a number of casualties at Kufra.

  From Zighen we plunged once more into the dunes and valleys of the Sand Sea. ‘Unsticking’ had been a wearisome-enough business when we were fresh; now that we were tired, it was a nightmare. We were glad to see the last of the Sand Sea.

  Next day we found ourselves among black cliffs and towering red sandstone pinnacles. With luck we should reach Kufra next morning. That night, we lay down to sleep on a soft patch of sand with a new and not altogether agreeable feeling of security and of certainty as to how it would all end. Some of the more musically inclined members of the party celebrated our last night out with a sing-song, and the last sound that drifted across to me as I fell asleep was the rich tenor of Sergeant Phillips, a hardened offender on such occasions, giving a particularly soulful rendering of ‘The green eye of the little yellow god’.

  In the event, we did not reach Kufra until the following evening. So far both our tyres and the vehicles themselves had stood up well enough to the bashing which they had been given. Now both began to fail and the short journey took us all day. Every few minutes the despairing hooting of a horn apprised us that a truck or a jeep had broken down, either with a puncture or a mechanical defect. Then the whole convoy would grind to a halt, while the necessary repairs were carried out. With increasing frequency the shout of ‘Fitter’s Jeep!’ would ring out, and the chief fitter, Sergeant Lilley, dark, thin and efficient, would come dashing up with his team of experts to carry out what seemed miraculous repairs on the battered and sand-crusted engines. Even a puncture was a serious matter. Spare wheels and jacks were things of the past. Each time, the truck or jeep had to be lifted by bodily force, the wheel taken off, the old tattered tube patched and re-patched and put back again. When we had set out, it had been an easy matter for four of us to lift a jeep. Now, it was all that eight of us could do to get it off the ground, and the more often the punctures occurred the more exhausted we became. Tempers grew frayed, only Guardsman Duncan remaining completely imperturbable, as again and again our jeep came to a shaky halt with its klaxon sounding, and all eight of us climbed down to heave, pull and wrench at the offending wheel.