by Jana Petken
“I’ve only now arrived, but I assume you’ve had reconnaissance patrols out, and Axis prisoners to question?” Max questioned his superior. “Tell me, Colonel, will anything I bring back be so vitally important to you that you have to mount such an operation hours before a major battle?”
When Jenkins glared with narrowed eyes, Max followed his questions with a veiled rebuke of his own. “With respect, Colonel, but shouldn’t you already have the intelligence you need?”
“Yes, yes, of course we have intelligence,” Jenkins snapped, looking annoyed, “but General Montgomery insists on knowing if Field Marshal Rommel is at the Mareth Line, as we suspect, and if he is, how many staff officers are with him. You see, it is the size of the officer contingent that matters, Major. If most of Rommel’s staff officers are with him, it means they have nothing much of anything left in their secondary lines. You do understand that tomorrow’s ground attack could herald the last major battle of the North Africa campaign?”
Max’s brain started screaming, Suicide mission. This is a bad joke! before Jenkins had finished speaking. But the colonel wasn’t laughing.
Max, rebelling against the ridiculous order, shot back, “You do know I am representing the Foreign Office in Westminster? I am not under Eighth Army command…”
“I know who you are,” Jenkins spat, taking the gloves off, “and you can wipe that smugness off your face. You are wearing a military uniform, are you not?”
“Yes, but…”
“And you are in North Africa, not London, am I right?”
“Yes, sir…”
“Then whilst you are here you will follow orders, whether you find them distasteful or not. Am I correct, or am I missing something?”
“Yes, sir, you are correct. But it’s my duty to inform you that if I am captured wearing a German uniform, I will be interrogated or shot or both. And if I am questioned, I will be carrying a considerable array of classified MI6 material in my head. Am I really the man you want for this job…?”
Max turned sharply as the noise of heavy boots thumping the ground grew louder.
Six men approached. They halted together and saluted first Colonel Jenkins then Max, who wore a murderous scowl.
The captain of the squad ordered his men to stand at ease. “Reporting for duty, sir,” he said, also standing easy.
“Captain Scott. Good, just in time,” Jenkins said. “This is Major Vogel, British Intelligence. He’s your mission tonight.”
“Sir?” Captain Scott queried, looking almost as confused as Max had been earlier. “Begging your pardon, sir? You’re sending an officer … a major behind the lines dressed as a German Leutnant?”
“Yes. Why do you chaps not understand what I am saying? Major Vogel has spent almost the entire war, thus far, behind enemy lines. I’m sure a few more hours won’t do him any harm – am I right, Major?”
“Yes, sir. I don’t see any problem at all,” Max answered, tongue-in-cheek.
Missing the sarcasm, Jenkins continued, leaving Max’s protests behind him. “Captain Scott is one of the unit leaders of the Long-Range Desert Group. They come under the direct command of GHQ Middle East now, but General Montgomery wants this done, and what he wants, he gets. The LRDG’s will be guiding you into position. And Major? You’d better make it back on time because these chaps are out again tomorrow with the 2nd New Zealand Division, who are spearheading our offensive.”
Max knew all about the LRDG. They were hardened men – mostly British, Indian, or New Zealanders – who had volunteered for the unit that had been formed specifically to carry out deep penetration, covert reconnaissance patrols and intelligence missions behind Axis lines, predominately Italian. Experts in desert navigation, they often guided other units, such as the Special Air Service, and secret agents such as himself across treacherous desert terrain.
“Captain, why don’t you brief the major. I’d better get off,” the colonel said, and he left without another word, as if he’d completely lost interest in the whole thing.
Scott unrolled his map and placed it on top of the one that was already pinned to the easel. His six men stood in a relaxed position as they eyed up Max, who had so many questions it felt as if fireworks were going off in his brain.
“Major, we’ll be using two of our own vehicles. We’ll halt one kilometre from our target area, then lead you on foot to within four hundred metres of the German perimeter. From there, you’ll go in on your own.” Scott pointed to the map. “These are the main German fortifications on the Mareth Line. We expect you’ll find Axis Command Headquarters in one of these bunkers here.”
Max nodded. “Carry on, Captain.”
“To the rear of the bunkers are numerous machine-gun posts, but the two on the eastern and western edges of the hill behind the main fortification line don’t have direct line of sight to the ravine because of jutting rocks. If you can take out one of those two-man dugouts, you should be able to slip behind the Axis lines.”
Max stared hard at the map. It was not enough for him to hear that two machine-gun posts didn’t have a direct line of sight because of jutting rocks. He needed more to go on. A mapmaker used collected data and attempted to represent it visually on paper. He used encoding, applied generalisation, symbols, and standardised production methods that would, hopefully, lead to a depiction that could be interpreted by the map user in the way the mapmaker intended.
“Sir?” Scott prompted after a long pause.
“One minute,” Max mumbled, refusing to be hurried. If he got this wrong, he could walk headlong into a machine-gun post staring him in the face or be sprayed with bullets by one before he got within fifty yards of it.
For a full five minutes, Max searched and decoded the symbols, patterns, gradient percentages, distances, and rock formations and eventually came to his own conclusion. “Take me to the flat ground on the most eastern part of the hill. That’ll be my way in, and I won’t have to kill a German to do it.”
Scott gestured to one of his men to mark the map and route they’d now take whilst he continued to brief Max.
“We’ll have six hours in total, sir, to get in and out and add on travel time. We haven’t managed to get as close to the Axis fortifications as you will tonight, but we’ve seen enough to know they’re short on heavy weaponry...”
“You’ve been close enough to see that?” Max asked.
“Yes, sir. We’ve been under their noses in this desert for more than two years.”
One of the other men butted in, “I don’t think anyone is underestimating the fight we’re going into tomorrow, least of all General Montgomery. The Mareth Line is a natural defensive position, and its fortifications are as strong as hell.”
Scott asked Max, “Were you involved in the assault last week, sir?”
“No. I arrived at the front a couple of days ago,” Max answered.
“Ah, fresh meat … begging your pardon, sir,” the other man apologised after Scott threw him a filthy look.
“General Montgomery wasn’t happy about that failure to take the line,” Scott began again. “He tried a flanking attack to the south, around the German right flank, but he underestimated the danger the two Wadis posed, and his 30th Corps, New Zealand, and Free French troops were pushed back. Don’t get me wrong, he did manage to make this bridgehead, but he hates to lose a fight with Rommel.” Scott, a man in his early thirties, had a mop of blond hair, similar in colour to Max’s. He also sported an unruly, thick beard, which the officer enforcing the book on uniform standards had apparently overlooked.
Max scratched his own sand-coloured hair and stared again at the map. If they already know that information, why the hell am I going in there? All eyes were on him, and he forced a tight smile. If, in his old age, he remembered any rule from his time in the army, it would be that he mustn’t look scared or hesitant in front of lower ranks. “What firepower are you bringing, in case we’re detected en route?”
Before Scott could answer, a man wearing a
well-worn German Afrika Korps uniform, displaying the rank of Gefreiter – corporal – joined the group. He saluted Max with an outstretched arm and a “Heil Hitler.” Then he introduced himself in perfect German with a Bavarian accent. “Gefreiter Hans Winkler. I’ll be going in with you, sir.”
Max gave the short, stalky man with greying hair and a sun-beaten face an easy smile and asked a question of his own, “Do I take it you are fluent in German, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir. My grandfather is from Munich. He’s been speaking German to me all my life. I lived with him in Munich for six years after my parents died, but I haven’t heard from him since ‘39. I worry about my old Großvater, sir – he’s a Jew. What are your orders, Herr Major?”
“I don’t have any orders yet, Sergeant Winkler. Get yourself something to eat. I’ll meet you in an hour.”
Poor sod. His German grandfather didn’t stand a chance.
Chapter Thirty-One
Max was dressed in what he presumed was a dead Leutnant’s Afrika Korps uniform and helmet. He also carried a rucksack full of German-issue military accoutrements, Mauser rifle, and goggles, and he had the German’s Wehrpass identity book in his pocket, minus the photograph. He surmised the Germans would be far too busy trying to stay alive to demand his identity papers.
As he made his way to the transport, he vowed to report Colonel Jenkins to Heller. He wouldn’t do it because Jenkins was a plonker but for the sake of other men who might be put in the same position; one where Jenkins’ incompetent orders might be an irrefutable abuse of power. His job, Heller had told him before leaving London, was to gather intelligence from captured German and Italian prisoners and to draw updated, detailed maps of Tunisia to give to the cartography unit. Five cartographers had been killed recently whilst on missions, and Max had expected to go behind enemy lines to compile maps of enemy positions and any plausible routes they might take because that meant looking outwards from their locations. Not this, though; this was a job for an NCO, not a bloody Major!
While waiting for the last of the seven-man LRDG team to arrive, Max looked over the two vehicles they were using to get to the Mareth Line. The Willys MB Jeeps were unlike any others in service in that they had been stripped of all non-essentials, including doors, windscreens, and roofs. They’d also been fitted with bigger radiators, condenser systems, built up leaf springs for the harsh terrain, wide, low-pressure desert tyres, sand mats, and channels. Each vehicle also had map containers and a sun compass. Max, although familiar with the all-purpose Willys, had never inspected one. They’d been designed for the American Army to provide a convertible small car body so arranged that a single vehicle could be interchangeably used as a cargo truck, personnel carrier, emergency ambulance, field beds, radio car, trench mortar unit, and mobile anti-aircraft machine gun unit. They were the stars of the show, as the Americans liked to boast.
“We’re ready,” Captain Scott announced as he appeared, “and I’ve got bad news. Your extraction time has been brought forward to avoid the main part of our air attack. You and Sergeant Winkler will have no more than two hours to get in, collect the intelligence, and then get out. Sorry, sir. Orders from Colonel Jenkins.”
Max shrugged as he got into the back of the second Jeep. He wasn’t surprised, truth be told. “The less time we spend there, the better, Captain.”
Scott gestured to his men to get into the first Jeep where Sergeant Winkler was already seated, then he got in beside Max.
Max’s backside thumped against the hard seat as they began the short but treacherous drive to the German Lines. Scott had predicted it would take no more than half an hour. In preparation for the following day’s attack, he and his men had conducted a trial run of the route they were going to take and had also investigated a second course in case the first one was blocked.
Allied soldiers were nervous but also expectant, Max had noted as soon as he’d arrived at the Eighth Army’s lines. For the first time, an RAF air attack would be carried out in tandem with ground troops and forward air controllers advancing with the lead forces. The army’s orders were to smash their way through the Axis lines and within two days reach El Hamma, to the north-east of the Tebaga Gap, where they’d continue to push the Axis forces northwards and towards the sea. Tomorrow would be a pivotal day in the war, and it would also be bloody…
“You know the reason Monty’s sending you in there is to find out if Rommel’s around,” Scott remarked, jerking Max from his thoughts. “I swear he’s obsessed with the Desert Fox. He probably has wet dreams every night about the day he captures the man.”
“If that’s true, he should go in there himself tonight,” Max grunted.
“I agree, sir. This is bad form.”
With his eyes shut, Max visualised the operation in his head. In his mind’s eye, he saw Winkler and himself already integrating with German and Italian soldiers and masking their subtle questions about troop numbers, weaponry, plans, and where their highest-ranking officers were located.
As they neared the drop-off point, Scott ran through the weapons they were carrying, should they get caught in a firefight during extraction. The LRDG men were using their standard Short Magazine Lee–Enfield No.1 Mk III, and .38 Enfield, Webley & Scott, and .45 Colts. Each Jeep was also equipped with a Thompson sub-machine gun and several types of hand grenades, some extremely powerful. Max and Winks were going in with Mauser rifles, Luger P08 pistols, and knives.
Whatever happened behind the line, Max had made it clear to Scott he was not to wait past the designated pick-up time. If worst came to worst, he and Winks would make their own way back to the Allied positions, some of which would be moving forward within hours. It had sounded like a straightforward order when Max said it, but as the vehicle got closer to the rendezvous point, he regretted opening himself up to the possibility of being stranded.
After marking the spot and leaving the rest of the team, Max and Winkler set off on the last sprint to their target location. The sky was clear and quiet, and being one day short of a full moon, bright enough for the men to see a good few metres in front of them.
When the two men were three hundred fifty metres in and on high ground, Max looked through his binoculars and spotted the Axis’ outer defence perimeter. Hundreds … thousands of men were positioned on the plain bordered at the far end by a low ridge. Max looked at his map. According to it, twenty metres on the other side of the incline were the main fortifications and command bunkers with trenches leading from one to the other.
He looked through his binoculars again, focusing this time on the ridge itself. It too was packed with soldiers along the scrubland line. Then he drew his finger across the map following the route he’d marked earlier. “We’ll cross further east and skirt the Axis flank all the way to the ridge if we have to, but we’ll probably find an opening before that,” he whispered to Winkler.
Max and Winkler used rock formations and scrub for cover as they moved across the rocky terrain in a north-easterly direction. When they were as close to the Axis perimeter as they were willing to go, they crouched behind a waist-high rock.
Max peered up at the sky. It was happening already – early – far too early. The sound of approaching Allied heavy bombers and Spitfires was growing louder and louder until the rumbling noise of the engines was deafening. He nudged Winkler, who was still sweeping his binoculars across the black sky. “Any minute now, hell is going to descend on this line.”
“Bloody marvellous. For once, they’re early,” Winkler muttered.
Max calculated that the RAF and Northwest African Tactical Air Force would hit the Axis Airfields first, not the line itself. Max had learnt at General Montgomery’s briefing that RAF forward observation officers had prepared pilots by nominating landmarks, and they would already be marking targets with red and blue smoke. Once the main ground attack began, friendly troops were to use orange smoke, and the artillery would fire smoke shells to signal to the aircrews; however, none of that helped Max now. He, W
inkler, and the men waiting with the two LRDG vehicles were in as much danger of being blown up as the Axis troops were. Damn Jenkins. He’d either miscalculated the start time of this mission, or he didn’t give a damn.
“On the upside … at least we won’t need to take out any machine-gun dugouts. As soon as the first bomb hits, this lot will run for cover, and that will let us in as though we were invisible,” said Max, focused on the mission now.
“Well, that’s something I suppose. Who was the clown that thought this gem of an op up?” Winkler asked.
Max shrugged, unwilling to admit it might have been the mighty Montgomery. “We’ll head straight for the bunkers on the other side of that ridge,” he said instead. “We’re not going to hang around. We’ve got approximately forty-five minutes to get what we need but if you think you’ve got enough in the first five, get out. Understood?”
“Understood,” Winks mouthed, putting his binoculars away.
The ferociousness of the first bomb blast took Max by surprise, but it also surprised the Axis troops on the ground who were fifty metres from Max and Winkler’s position. Max took in a long deep breath, exhaled, and then breathed in again. “See you at the extraction location.”
A second, deafening Allied bomb hit far too close to the men for comfort, then another blast vibrated the ground beneath them as they lurched to their feet and ran into the chaos.
Axis soldiers were running in numerous directions, making it easy for the two men to blend in. Some were scrambling over the ridge to get to the bunkers on the other side, others were running away from the hundreds of parked vehicles, while those frozen with fear were trying to take cover beneath them.