Reeves had the light Scimitars, 33 in all, spread over his three squadrons, with twelve more Dragon AFVs bringing up the rear. With him now were the three companies of the Gurkha Battalion, which had swelled their ranks by taking on more of those fierce fighters from this era, training them in the use of modern weapons and tactics over the last three months. They were motorized now, with British trucks getting them out here from the wire on the Egyptian border in good time.
Reeves looked at his map. They would pass Hill 469 if they continued west, and that would put them only about 30 kilometers from the fighting. He received a report indicating that the British had already moved both the 22nd Guards and 22nd Tank brigades down to plow right into the German turning movement around that southern flank. They arrived in the nick of time, better late than never, and were most helpful in stabilizing the situation.
“The question now is whether to push on or wait for Allen,” he said to himself. That was the Colonel commanding the heavy tank battalion, following Reeves’ tracks and now about 80 klicks east. Kinlan had decided he would get his Challengers west overland just as quickly as the laborious loading operation and train ride up to Tobruk.
“I’ll be inside the fence if I take that route,” he told O’Connor. That would put me in a good position to cover Tobruk on defense, but for my money, I’d prefer a good counterattack. Better if I move overland and turn up on their flank, just as we did last May. Can you hold for another day?”
“We’ll hold,” O’Connor told him. “You can come late if you must, but just be sure you get there. It was tooth and nail in the artillery park this morning, but then Jerry pulled back. I’d like to think it was our boys on the 25 Pounders, but they had another full tank battalion right behind the first, and it pulled out too. I smell Rommel. He’s up to something, but I can’t imaging what.”
“Very well,” said Kinlan. “We’re coming as quick as we can.”
By dusk on the 19th of October, O’Connor could look at his map and pencil in what the front looked like that evening. 4th Indian, realizing they were in a pickle, had managed to conduct a fighting withdrawal to the northeast. The weight of those two brigades he had filched from Montgomery had stabilized the flank in the nick of time, and now he learned where Kinlan’s lead elements were, and was much heartened.
“By Jove, I think we’ve stopped them,” he said aloud. As always, he was listening to the battle again, and the loud crack of those 25 Pounders he had been hearing all afternoon was finally abating. Darkness was coming, and with it a lull in the action. The Germans will either reorganize to hit us again in the morning, he thought, or they’ll do what they should do now and pull back behind Wadi Thiran. I’m surprised Rommel tried this same maneuver again. You’d think he might have learned his lesson.
Implacable Montgomery was the one who really decided the fate of that battle. His dogged infantry kept after the Italians, forcing them back and away from the coastal road, which he now opened to any advance north towards Derna, if he could only find some troops to throw in that direction. His main effort had been to push the Italians back through a gap at the western edge of the high escarpment, and from there he was now in a good position to cut Trigg Capuzzo, a vital life line that ran west about 40 kilometers to the German depots at Mechili.
That was the thrust that got Rommel’s attention, and with Ravenstein’s division so scattered piecemeal along the front, he had no strong force in hand to counterattack. He knew in his bones that his position was now fatally compromised. It was no longer a question of holding the Gazala line and punching off the ropes as he had planned, Crüwell had ruined all that with his wild, harebrained attack around that flank. Now it was a question of whether or not he could even safely extricate his panzer divisions. One battalion of Ravenstein’s 21st was so embroiled with the retreating 4th Indian Division that it was soon entirely behind the enemy lines. Rommel had to organize a quick counterattack to break through to it, and get as many of those tanks out as he could.
He rode off at dusk, angry and looking for a pound of flesh. Where was Crüwell? Rommel moved from unit to unit, pointing out where he wanted the men to go, and slowly, like a madman on a mission, he began to pull his divisions off the line and get them moving in the dark toward a new defensive position he had prepared in his mind long ago.
We can’t hold the Gazala Line, and with that coast road open it will only be a matter of time before they chase the Italians up to Derna. Now the main thing is to screen our depots at Mechili, regroup the panzer divisions behind that infantry screen, and see how much pluck the British still have in them, If nothing else, we’ve hit back hard, and they had to feel it.
Bitter with the rebuke Rommel had heaped on him, Crüwell was not yet prepared to ignore the order he had received. That night he called off his attack and began pulling back to Wadi Thiran. He got hold of Meindel and saw that his tough Falschirmjaegers were in a good position to cover that withdrawal, and it was this force that Lieutenant Reeves would encounter the following morning.
The Germans saw what looked like a column of cruiser tanks advancing, and they adopted the infantry holding position tactics that Rommel had drilled them on. Teams had already sewn mines the previous night, though they had no wire to deploy, but the men had dug into the dry desert and set up good machinegun positions, with a screen of troops in fox holes, with the new German Panzerfaust. One such team was well forward, where a large, solitary rock stood like a monolith in the desert. The private and corporal were hidden there, screened by the rock, and holding one of the deadly new weapons.
Reeves decided his 12th Royal Lancers had better keep moving. He wanted to scout out the way ahead, make sure the road was cleared of any mines, and determine where the enemy flank actually was. But in desert fighting, that was something that shifted and changed from hour to hour.
The morning saw the action start there, with a single Scimitar scouting forward down the road, looking to spy out the German positions. They came up on that monolith, and were suddenly surprised when the Germans appeared at the edge of the rock.
“Look out cobber! Hostiles left!” shouted the Sergeant as he quickly slapped his MG around to engage. The light tank’s turret rotated quickly left, ready to fire the 30mm main gun. But at that moment there was a hiss and a thunk, and the Sergeant saw what he thought was an RPG in the air. Then it hit the Scimitar square on the frontal armor plate.
If this had been a Challenger II, with frontal armor protection equivalent to over 1200mm, the round would have exploded, failed to penetrate, and then the tank would have simply gunned down those two brave German paratroopers. But this was not a Challenger II…
The Panzerfaust could defeat armor up to 200mm at that range, and the Scimitar had much thinner aluminum armor. The round blew right threw, killing the driver in the forward hull position immediately, and sending a hail of deadly shrapnel into the two man turret to also kill the Sergeant and gunner.
The two Germans looked at one another, seeing the smoking wreck of the Scimitar, and grinning at one another. Then they turned and fled back towards their lines in a low crouch, and there was one less tank in Reeve’s 12th Royal Lancers. The Lieutenant saw what had happened in his field glasses, about 500 meters back from that lead tank. It was a bloody ambush, he thought, ordering up the rest of his troop, which began laying down desultory suppressive fire on any position or terrain feature that looked suspicious.
Well, thought Reeves, we’ve found the German flank, but too bad for Big Al in number one out there. Sergeant Alvin Combs and his crew had the dubious distinction of dying before they were ever born. Reeves looked the situation over, eventually determining that he had what looked to be a full regiment of German infantry in front of him. They were dug in, and what was that they had just fired to kill that lead tank? He knew the Germans were not supposed to have any hand held AT weapons like that, not this early in the war.
Fedorov’s visit to Palmyra had changed all that.
; With a shrug, the Lieutenant got on the radio and called up Colonel Allen. “Infantry,” he said. “But they just popped off a hand held AT round and killed my lead Scimitar. Gurkhas are still behind us, but I don’t think we’ll want to waste those men in a frontal assault. I’m looking at a regiment here.”
“Very well Lieutenant,” said Allen. “Hold there. My Challengers are still about 40 kilometers east of your position, but we should be there by dusk.”
By the time Allen would get there, the British Army was sitting proudly on Rommel’s Gazala line, having taken both Gazala itself near the coast, Bir Hacheim, and hill 557 south on the northern fringes of Wadi Thiran. Monty had reached Trigg Capuzzo, and had every intention of continuing his attack the next day. Yet at the same time, Rommel, in a whirlwind of ceaseless energy, had slowly managed to get his two infantry divisions back to a better defensive line. Neither side was beaten, for there was a lot of guff still left in the Germans, but both sides had been worn out by many days fighting.
All of O’Connor’s armor needed fuel and ammunition, and his infantry needed rest, particularly the hard pressed 4th Indian Division, which had barely escaped the jaws of Crüwell’s attack. When Rommel found Crüwell at long last, he spent ten minutes shouting at the man, who stood stolidly in the face of his rage until the Desert Fox finally pulled off his gloves, sitting on an empty supply crate, his wrath finally abated.
“Counterattack was the plan here, General Crüwell, not a major offensive. The better part of valor is discretion!”
“But if we merely stand on defense,” said Crüwell, “the morale of the Army will surely fail. Victory can only come to those bold enough to seize it.”
“A nice turn of words,” said Rommel. “Here in the desert, victory comes when we destroy our enemy. Only then can we contemplate a move east. I made the mistake earlier of thinking the occupation of endless swathes of this desert was the outward sign of victory, but that will come only if we destroy the British 8th Army. That is how we plant the seed of victory. It does not matter where it happens, here, on the wire at the Egyptian border, at Mersa Brega, Tripoli, or even Cairo. You have thrown my entire defensive plan out the window. We cannot hold here, not with Montgomery pushing the Italians. I’ll have to find a way to cover all the roads leading into Mechili from the coast now. That will take Ravenstein’s entire division. Can I trust you with the other two, or must I relieve you here and now?”
“Where do you want them?” Crüwell said sullenly.
“We’ll hold the line west of Bir Hacheim. You pivot your entire sector back on that hinge. Cover the roads leading to our fort depot on the road to Msus. The wadi will provide good cover and positions for you to post a delaying force. We move tonight.”
“And then what?” said Crüwell. “Back to Mersa Brega? Another retreat?”
“Not if I can salvage the situation you’ve left me in,” Rommel gave him another hard look. “I intend to hold here as long as feasible. We’ll stand in front of Mechili, but if the British push hard for Derna, I may have no choice other than to move west again. Strategic redeployment is not retreat, Herr General, any more than a reckless advance is a victory.”
More than one Crusader had been chastened in the desert during that hard fought battle. Crüwell would spend a sleepless night, still burning from the scourging Rommel had given him and inwardly feeling that the other man had simply lost his nerve. The British would find they lost half of the tanks they took so long to build up, and that their new Crusaders were very unreliable, prone to breakdowns, under gunned, and under armored. Reeves would preside over a brief desert burial for the three men he lost in that Scimitar, and have a long talk with his men about the weapon the Germans might have used to kill them.
Brigadier Kinlan positioned his Challengers for a possible assault the following day, but as O’Connor sorted things out, it would be the better part of a week before the 8th Army could move again. The troops needed fuel, food, water, new equipment, tanks from the reserve pool, and well earned rest. Before they did move again, the Desert Fox would slip away.
Chapter 32
“So I’ll make you an offer,” said Karpov, looking Fedorov right in the eye. “Starpom. You stand with me, or you stand against me. It’s the same question this war asked of both of us, and now I want your answer. Starpom… I’ll make you my Number One, with a promotion to Captain of the Third Rank, not that the rank matters, but we’ll follow normal naval protocols. You’ll stand with me, right there on the bridge, confer with me, support me, and yes, you speak your mind as you see it. I’ll listen to you, and consider everything you tell me, and then I’ll make my decision, just like Volsky would. If you say yes, and stand with me, then I want your pledge of loyalty too, just as you would give that to Volsky. When I give an order, I want your Aye Sir, right after it, not an argument on the bridge in front of the other officers.”
“And if I disagree with that order?”
“Hell, Fedorov, you know I disagreed with the way Volsky was handling things from the moment we had that accident with Orel.”
“Yes, and when the Admiral wouldn’t see things your way, you tried to subvert his authority and take the ship.”
“That was regrettable,” said Karpov. “I’m not that man any longer. Surely you must see that now.”
“I’m not quite sure what I see yet. All I know is what you’ve done. You told Volsky you were a changed man once, and he placed his faith and trust in you. Look what happened.”
“I fought hard to get here, Fedorov. You think it was easy being dragged out of the sea three years ago, left for dead by you and everyone else?”
“Yes, Captain, but you must admit that your methods, and your judgment, are sometimes quite self serving. I understand that in 2021 you needed to stand up against the Americans, but in 1945? What were you thinking?”
“My blood was up. It was war,” said Karpov. “Like I said a moment ago, when you take up the sword, you had better know how to use it. When the Demon Volcano blasted us back to 1945, well there I was, with no magic wand in Rod-25 to get anywhere else, or so I saw things. And there was the American fleet, Nimitz, Halsey, and all the rest. They had just beaten Japan to a bloody pulp, and then they thought they could do the same to me. They made a mistake in that, but it’s all in the past now as much as we might think it’s in our future at this moment. Yes, this is 1941, and that was 1945, but not in this world. The moment the ship shifted back to 1908, everything changed. Don’t you see? I re-wrote all of that history! There was no ‘incident’ in the Pacific between the US and Russia in 1945. Believe me, I looked for it in any history book I could find here. I still remember it all, but it never happened in this world, because the Japanese took Vladivostok from us long ago. It hasn’t been Russian held territory since before the Revolution.”
“Thanks to your meddling in 1908.”
“You want to argue all that again?” Karpov folded his arms. “If I had finished what I was doing, the Japanese Empire would not be calling Vladivostok Urajio now, nor would they be sitting on Port Arthur, all of Manchuria, and all of Primorskiy Province! Don’t you see? I would have stopped them, but you and Volsky had to come along in your submarine, so sanctimonious, so self-righteous. That bit about being self-serving cuts both ways, Fedorov. Well look around. Read the history books now, because it was your hand that wrote them. Do you like what you see? There wouldn’t be a goddamn Japanese Empire if I had been able to finish what I started. And by god, this war would look a whole lot different then, wouldn’t it?”
Fedorov shrugged. “I suppose that’s true,” he admitted.
“Of course it’s true! Alright, I understand what you and Volsky did, and why you thought it was necessary, but you were wrong, Fedorov. You thought you could put all the puzzle pieces back together again, but you were simply wrong. That is what I have known from the very first—you can’t save the past, or try to preserve the future we came from by doing that. The moment we appeared here, everything ch
anged. Those changes were subtle things at first, but the acorn becomes a tree in time. Now look at the three of us! We took up sides here, and we fought our enemies. Nothing could ever be the same after we made those choices. The history could never be preserved. All we could do was rewrite it, and that is all we can do here now. So I ask you again, and for the last time, will you stand with me? If so, then we’ll rewrite it together, because believe me, the future we came from was dead the moment Volsky shot that first plane down. Understand?”
Fedorov thought for a moment, his eyes reflecting the torment of all they had seen and done. In one sense, Karpov was correct. How could the history of this world ever recompose itself to become the future they came from? That realization had been growing in him for months, like that acorn, and now it’s sturdy trunk seemed to tower up and up in his soul. This was the world they made together, all of them, Volsky, Karpov, himself, and yes, even Orlov. How could he ever reset the hands of this clock? With each passing second, the history continued to change. It was being slowly re-written again, and even if this ship, and everyone aboard, simply vanished into the ether of that strange fog again, this world would carry on and be what it would be.
“You realize what this means?” Fedorov said slowly.
“Of course I do,” said Karpov.
“We’ll never get home again,” said Fedorov. “The future we’ve been trying to preserve won’t be there. How could it be?”
“Exactly,” said Karpov. “No, we’ll never see 2021 again. Neither one of us could live that long, but we’ll see the world we shape here with our own hands, and that can be a world you might be glad to live in. Look at it now… This war is hanging in the balance at this moment, and we can weigh heavily on those scales. What we decide now, what we do, will shape the future course of history. You and Volsky threw in with Churchill, of course, what else could you do? I threw in with Sergei Kirov—what else could I do? But Volkov….”
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