by Jana Petken
“You know where we are. This is the Mareth Line.”
“I know that, Willie. I was seeing how far Tunis is from here. A man can get confused by geography when he’s been chased across a desert for months on end, looking at the same landscape. Look here…” Egon highlighted the map with his torch and drew his finger to the edge of it. “We’re going to end up swimming to Sicily if we’re not careful…”
“Feldwebel Wachtmeister Vogel!”
The soldier, his face black with gunpowder, crouched down as he hurried to Wilmot’s side.
Wilmot looked at his half-finished cigarette and sighed. Typical. “Do they want me, Schütze?”
The man panted, “Ja, Feldwebel Wachtmeister … I think we’re moving out.”
“Of course, we are,” said Wilmot, rolling his eyes sarcastically.
In the adjoining bunker, Wilmot joined a packed room of officers and staff sergeants. The commanders and staff officers were huddled around a map while the rest of the men couldn’t see a thing. On his way there, Wilmot passed lines of injured soldiers being treated by members of the medical corps, which included one Oberarzt. Poor devils, he’d thought, seeing the medics trying to stem the blood flow from a screaming man’s gut. They weren’t going to get out of this alive. Only the fit and strong would be able to run through this terrain to relative safety. A German graveyard of vehicles and tanks, along with dead soldiers of all ranks, stretched all the way back to Libya, and from what he was seeing, the Allies were blowing up damaged Panzer tanks and transport trucks. Transport was going to be a problem for the wounded.
The men at the table were strangers to Wilmot, apart from his Leutnant, an aristocratic sort of fellow who claimed his family had blood ties to the old Kaiser. He was, for all his pompous speeches, a hard bastard in terms of discipline and a damn good leader.
Wilmot listened to the brash discussion going on. The rumours that Field Marshal Rommel had left the desert and was in Germany because of illness had been circulating for days. ‘That’s all they are – rumours,’ Wilmot had told his men. They’d find out for themselves soon enough if they were accurate. Wilmot, knowing that Rommel had left and that his successor was General von Arnim, kept the information to himself. Thinking that Rommel was still with them gave the soldiers hope, and that was all they had left. He wouldn’t take it from them.
An explosion hit near the bunker’s roof, and the items on the table rattled. Dust and bricks fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing the division’s senior staff officer, and large cracks in the roof ripped across the thin layer of plaster.
“… our position is strengthened by these hills and rock formations, but even with these well-constructed defences, we can’t hold them back. They’re throwing everything they have at us and smashing their way through solid stone,” a major was saying. “We received orders from Berlin to fight on until the last drop of Afrika Korps’ blood is spilt, but Field Marshal Rommel left instructions that we were to retreat to save lives if we think we cannot hold. That time has come. I will not watch the men die for the Reich’s convoluted pride.”
Thank God for Rommel, Wilmot thought.
“With respect, Herr Major, I disagree. We should fight on. If we can hold them back now, the Italians will eventually reinforce us,” a Hauptmann with one bandaged eye said.
Another shell hit, forcing the major to shout, “No, Hauptmann, we will not carry on! Maybe you haven’t noticed, but we’re pinned down! That means no supplies or men can get through to us. Generalleutnant Gause suggests we withdraw immediately to our secondary defensive positions. He’s out there and knows more than we do in here. Our anti-tank guns will try to check the Allied advance to give us time to get away.”
General von Arnim removed his cap and scratched his sand-coated hair as he looked at the men. “We’re outnumbered two to one. We’ve lost thousands of men and our support and mobility from the air.” He threw his hands up. “They’ve liquidated our aircraft and have practically wiped out our tanks. You tell me, Hauptmann, how are we to face over a thousand Allied tanks, not to mention the hundreds of Allied guns pouring in on this sector? I’m stating a fact … if we don’t go now, we won’t get out at all!”
“We have the 15th Panzer Group on our secondary defensive line. We have not lost yet, Herr General,” the Hauptmann insisted.
Wilmot jumped as the ostentatious major slammed his fist onto the steel table. “Those tanks went up against the lead units of the American forces and ran into a minefield. The American artillery and anti-tank units opened fire, and our 10th Panzer Division lost thirty tanks within an hour. The tank commanders who survived have limped back to Gabès. We should withdraw!”
Emotions were running high. Wilmot, sharing the universal agony of imminent defeat, remained silent as the officers continued to spar with each other. He glanced at the other staff sergeants present and guessed they were praying for the retreat to go ahead. One was staring at the floor, shifting his feet in some strange, mournful dance, another was staring up at the dust-filled air, gritting his teeth, and an officer was leaving … my God, the man is a carbon-copy of Max and Paul. A lump sat at the back of Wilmot’s throat, and for a second, he thought about following his brothers’ double, so he could look at the man’s face again. My brothers – Christ, how I miss them.
Wilmot focused again. The sooner they reached the sea and got themselves to Sicily to regroup, the better, he had concluded hours earlier. The North Africa campaign was over; at least, for the moment. That had been evident when the intelligence services he was working with dismissed him.
In retrospect, that job had lasted about five minutes; he had never translated a single interrogation. The Abwehr, not prone to admitting defeat, had abandoned their operations when it became evident that they had no means of collecting enemy prisoners while on constant retreat. They’d tried a couple of times to send men behind enemy lines in darkness to capture live prisoners, but most of the soldiers they sent died on the missions, and the survivors didn’t bring back a single Allied soldier. Even the Abwehr had lost all hope for a comeback. They’d burnt their intelligence tents with everything in them. Luckily, though, he was able to keep his promotion in rank.
“… nein … nein, Herr Major, I must object. If Field Marshal Rommel were here, he would order us to hold…” another officer had now butted in.
“You know that’s not true, Josef,” Wilmot’s Leutnant interrupted the man.
“It is true! The Americans have been unable to exploit our failure in the minefield, and our 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions are still counterattacking up the road from the salt marshes at Gabès at the coast. And the coordination between the Allied air and ground forces remain disjointed. It is our right … our duty to the Fatherland to keep our guns firing…”
“Enough!” the general shouted as part of the brick wall in the next bunker blew inward.
The table vibrated again, the room filling with dust particles and smoke. Men were on the ground, and some were heading to the exit. The general, screaming now above the blasts, issued his final orders. “We are moving out, now. The injured that can walk, will walk, those who cannot will be put on what transport we have left.”
“And if we don’t have enough room to take all of them?” the sparring major shouted back.
“Their wounds will be treated by the enemy when they are taken prisoner.” As he rushed towards the exit, von Arnim threw over his shoulder, “Heil Hitler!”
“Heil Hitler,” came the muted responses.
Wilmot ran back to his bunker, past fires and dead men and through what looked like an impenetrable cloud of smoke.
Egon and the other surviving members of Wilmot’s unit were outside their section of the bunker with their rifles and rucksacks already on their backs. The front wall and trench had blown in.
Wilmot looked at the partly destroyed building and felt sick. “How many men were in the collapsed area?” he asked.
“About twenty. They’re probably
all dead, Feldwebel Wachtmeister.”
Wilmot had missed the beginning of the briefing, but he’d heard enough to believe that the North Africa campaign was over. One of two things could happen now: he and his men would be captured by the enemy, or they would be killed.
Egon giggled as the first of many Africa Korps’ platoons began to slip away from the Mareth Line to the noise of Panzer cover fire. “Ach, it’s ironic.”
“What is?” another man asked.
“Us, being in this place. Apparently, the French built the Mareth line in the 1930s to stop Italian fascists from occupying French Tunisia, and here we were with the Italian First Army, trying to defend the place against the rest of the world – hilarious.”
Egon isn’t stupid after all, Wilmot thought as he prepared to lead his men out of yet another hell hole.
Chapter Thirty-Three
In the hills south of Tunis
Tunisia, May 1943
After a hard struggle, the remnants of Wilmot’s 90th Division and Italian 1st Army eventually crossed the central plains of Tunisia to the comparative safety of the hills west of Tunis and Bizerte. The men were exhausted, hungry, and short of ammunition, but despite the pressure and hopelessness of their situation, they had, for weeks, bitterly contested the Allies’ mountain redoubts south of the Tunisian capital.
Above them, allied air forces bombed, blasted, and strafed the Germans and Italians with impunity until the thin Axis crust of a line began to decay, and gaps appeared or were pushed aside. Men were dying by the hundreds, and the wounded were receiving little more than battlefield first aid. The British and Americans had everything in the air that could fly and everything on the ground that could shoot, and they were bringing their concentrated fury to bear on the outfought, outgunned Afrika Korps.
Wilmot was sick. He thought he might be dying. His legs wobbled when he walked, his ribcage protruded like the Atlas Hills under his skin, and he was sweating by the bucket load. From behind a rock, he prayed an Allied soldier would appear and order him to surrender. He begged God, if such a thing existed, to shroud him in the luck that had kept him alive until now. He wanted to live, not end up like his mates lying around this hill … like garbage.
One by one, the German defences were being taken out. Dead Germans lay unburied, and their flesh was being devoured by vultures and carrion-eating kites, feral dogs, and flies. One after the other, their redoubts were being smashed, supplies were obliterated, and the surviving infantrymen were running out of bullets.
Wilmot had no idea how many men in the 90th were still fighting on this hill, but he believed the number was now down in the low hundreds. He also had no way to verify the orders being chaotically handed out, for it had been two days since he’d seen an officer of worth. His Leutnant had been killed a month earlier, and the Hauptmann he’d spoken to last had instructed the men to carry on fighting until their last drop of blood. ‘Stand and fight. Transport planes full of reinforcements are flying in to help us,’ the officer had said, looking and sounding like the bloody liar he was. Where is the bastard now? Is he dead, or did he surrender as so many others have, on some other godforsaken hill?
When the redoubt to his left was hit, Wilmot ordered his remaining men to abandon their posts. Fuck the officers, and fuck Adolf Hitler. His men lacked ammunition, and no more was coming. No magic carpet carrying crates of rocket launchers or fresh-faced men from Berlin was coming, either, and he and his men weren’t going to die on an officer’s say-so.
On shaky legs, Wilmot stumbled through a world of black smoke, tripping over dead comrades, some with uniforms still smoking with gunpowder. From one destroyed redoubt to the next, he shouted the same words, “Move back … move back … move to surrender!”
Egon, who’d been injured yet again, limped behind Wilmot as he manoeuvred through the labyrinth of crushed rocks and corpses. Men followed without question, abandoning their holes in the ground and tiny caves carved in the rock faces until a rifle shot behind them stopped them in their tracks.
“Get back here! You will fight! Bewege euch Schneller – sich zu ergeben ist Verrat und wird von einem Erschießungskommando bestraft – man your posts, now – to surrender is betrayal and is punishable by firing squad!”
The Oberleutnant, screaming at the men to return to their posts, had appeared from nowhere.
Wilmot charged back through the group of soldiers, seething with rage. The coward had probably been inside one of the hill caves, too scared to come out until the weapons had stopped firing. Of course, he didn’t want the men to abandon the position and leave him on his own; he wanted them to cover his arse and take the flak!
“With respect, Herr Oberleutnant, I will not order my men to die –” Another explosion hit, covering the men with debris. “Get down!” Wilmot shouted to his men, as he and the Oberleutnant also dropped to the ground. “Take cover!”
In the distance, Wilmot saw enemy troops, for the first time looking like men instead of marching ants on the plain below. “I respectfully advise a full withdrawal from this hill. It is lost, sir,” Wilmot tried again, getting to his knees and hunkering on the ground.
“Nein! Get your men back into their positions, or I’ll have you shot! We will not surrender – no surrender, men!”
Wilmot glimpsed two of his men falling to enemy bullets – allied rifles were now in range, and within the hour, British or American soldiers would be overrunning this location. Still hunkering, he shouted to his men, “Abandon your positions. Follow me. We will surrender!”
The Oberleutnant had scrambled to his feet, waving his Walther P38 pistol in the direction of Wilmot’s men. “I will shoot! Get back here! I will…” he screamed.
Wilmot, still on his knees, raised his rifle, and fired three shots into the officer while he was still barking orders.
“It’s over!” Wilmot yelled at the soldiers.
The officer dropped to his knees, stared at Wilmot in disbelief, then fell forwards until his face smashed into the ground.
Wilmot bellied towards his men like a lizard; afraid to rise, afraid to move too slowly. Against the cacophony of weapons fire that was hammering their eardrums, he screeched, “If any of you have objections to me killing our officer, it is so noted. Do you want to live?”
“Ja! Ja, Feldwebel!” the men shouted back.
“Then follow me. We’re going to surrender to the enemy.”
Wilmot’s heart thumped in tandem with the shell blasts that were obliterating their defensive positions, now behind them. He quickened his step, screaming, “Come on!” as he staggered downwards on uneven paths towards the plain.
Almost at the bottom, he threw his rifle on the ground. Its magazine was half full, but he’d use it no more. “Death or capture!” Wilmot now shouted.
The men behind Wilmot also threw their rifles away and then without being instructed, raised their arms high in the air with their face and neck scarves waving in their hands. They weren’t white flags, but near as damn it.
Finally, with no more deaths, the group reached the open plain at the bottom of the path. Wilmot panted, made a fist with his raised hand and halted his men. “We surrender!” he shouted in English when his platoon confronted American soldiers.
******
A few hours after their capture, the German and Italian prisoners rested on a wide, open plain packed with tanks and trucks, half-tracks, and bulldozers, a sea of defeated Axis troops, and the American army in all its glory.
Wilmot and the remnants of his platoon had not been the first group of Axis forces to be captured, for when they’d arrived at this place, which was as crowded as Berlin’s train station on a national holiday, he saw thousands of Afrika Korps men, standing, sitting, and lying down under American guard. From what he’d gathered from other prisoners, men had been capitulating since midday the previous day.
He was now trembling like a man doused in icy water; he realised how fortunate he and his men had been to abandon their position when
they did. Weapons fire was still echoing down from the hills, swarming now with Allied soldiers who’d climbed rock faces using grappling hooks and ropes. The Germans and Italians who had decided to remain would not be as lucky as those who had volunteered to lay down their arms. They were idiots, but more honourable than he’d been when he’d shot his superior officer, he supposed.
Allied soldiers, mostly Americans, looked as exhausted as Wilmot felt, as they stood in groups surrounding the tens of thousands of Afrika Korps prisoners. Tens of thousands? Over one hundred thousand, easily, and they were the ones Wilmot could physically see. Axis troops were still coming in on foot in tens, twenties, hundreds at a time, and being escorted by more Americans with their distinct helmets and American flags waving off their vehicles in the blistering hot breeze.
Wilmot sat on the ground beside Egon, who’d taken off his cap and boots and was moaning with satisfaction as he wriggled his toes. His bald head was pitted with tiny cuts and stained bright red, and his cap was ripped and full of holes; he probably didn’t even know it.
“Put your cap back on, Egon,” Wilmot ordered. “You’ll burn your head.”
“All right, Willie. You won’t leave me, will you?” Egon asked, as he put on his cap and pulled it down his forehead.
Although he acknowledged his fear, Wilmot also admitted that he was not as afraid now as he’d been on the hill when trying to defend their indefensible position. And he was certainly more optimistic than he had ever been as a prisoner of the Russians. Americans were more civilised than the Russkies who’d meted death sentences to their prisoners on a whim. These people here wouldn’t do that. They would follow the Geneva Convention, as Field Marshal Rommel had. He wasn’t going home, but he might survive this catastrophe.
When he and his men had come upon the Americans, he’d half expected to be mown down by semi-automatic rifles. Only later did he deduce that the Americans must have spotted his platoon-sized group waving scarves in their raised hands from a distance. The enemy soldiers hadn’t panicked or looked surprised. They’d been prepared to receive prisoners, as though waiting for them to turn the corner.