They were now in no man’s land. Tanner kept his eye on the looming, ragged escarpment to the right, some twenty to thirty feet high in places. Several enemy shells hurtled overhead, hissing through the night air and exploding moments later some distance behind, but otherwise the enemy was quiet. The curve of the escarpment arced to their right, and by following it, Tanner found the trig point Peploe had pointed out on the map.
‘All right, Browner,’ he said quietly. ‘This’ll do. You can stop here.’ The edge of the escarpment loomed darkly over them.
There were a few chinks and scrapes as the men clambered down from the trucks and gathered around him.
‘All right, lads,’ said Tanner, in a loud whisper. ‘We’ll move forward in a wide, flat V, but each of you make sure you can see the man next to you. Use that to judge the distance between each other. I’m going to halt you regularly, but use your ears as much as your eyes. We’ll walk normally to start with, but watch out for my signal to hit the deck. Sykes? Where are you?’
‘Here, sir.’
‘Good. I want you next to me. Mac, you come on my right with your section and the Bren. Lieutenant Shopland, you attach your other section to Mac’s. Everyone got enough ammo?’
Nods, ‘Yes, sir,’ muttered under the breath.
‘Good. Let’s go.’ He grabbed his rifle from its rest between the front seats and slung it across his back, then hung his MP40 around his neck. On his belt he had half a dozen grenades and his Sauer pistol, and in his pack, a number of clips of ammunition for the rifle and the sub-machine gun. Between them, they also had three Brens, spare magazines, and Sykes was carrying several packets of HE No. 2 and Nobel’s 808 Explosive.
Clear of the escarpment, the desert was as flat as a board, but Tanner soon found a sandy seam where it was possible to tread quietly. His heart was thumping strongly. Their surroundings seemed so still, so empty. Occasionally a shell was fired, but otherwise there was nothing, just a vast expanse – yet ahead the enemy had forward positions, just as they had forward positions, and their various units and headquarters, and supply dumps and endless lines of wire stretching back, all just as they had on their own side of the wire. Tanner’s ears and eyes strained for any sign of life.
After a hundred yards, he raised his hand and paused to listen, then led them forward another hundred yards. Pause, listen, move forward. The sand remained, but now he led the patrol slowly back to the edge of the rising ground, which might offer them a dark backdrop for any enemy observers watching for them. No dramatic escarpments now, only one of several feet: the ground rose away from them and he was confident they could not be seen clearly in silhouette. On again, pause, listen. Nothing. Tanner reckoned they had moved fourteen hundred yards from the trucks – and then he heard it. A click and a murmur. He froze and raised his arm, then lowered it: the signal for the patrol to get down.
Very slowly, very carefully, he led them forward again, crouching. He gripped his MP40 tightly, wincing at the faint sound of every step. Another fifty yards, he raised his arm again and listened. Voices, a low murmur, then someone laughed quietly. Not in front of them but ahead and away to their right, on the higher ground. A conversation – that meant more than one person. A pair at least, so probably an MG post. Jerry Spandaus were always manned by two men – one to fire, one to feed the belts of ammo. A tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Sykes next to him.
‘An MG post a hundred yards at three o’clock,’ whispered Tanner.
‘And a cigarette at ten o’clock.’
Tanner stared and saw a pinprick orange glow. And something else. The faintest sense of a dark shape. What was that? A sangar? A gun?
He turned to McAllister and pointed towards the voices. ‘Get your Bren covering that post and call Shopland.’ A faintly discernible nod, and a few moments later, Shopland was beside him.
‘I think there’s something at ten o’clock,’ he whispered to the other lieutenant. ‘I’m going to move fifty yards to the left and have a dekko with Sykes. I also think there might be an MG post at two o’clock, but Mac’s got it covered.’
Shopland nodded.
‘Stan,’ said Tanner, ‘follow me.’
Slowly, he moved away from the others, crouching low, with Sykes almost soundless behind him. They had gone perhaps fifty yards when Tanner stopped and again strained his eyes. Above them, a million stars, and ahead, he now saw, silhouetted against the sky, enemy wire, just ten yards or so away, and the ever-present wooden boards that were now becoming such a feature of the line. Here was the edge of the enemy minefield. But beyond that, seventy or eighty yards off, was a gun, its long barrel slightly elevated, a sangar of stones and sand built up around it. The cigarette they had seen had been from one of the gun’s crew.
They crouched there, Tanner staring ahead, weighing up their options.
‘What are you thinking, sir?’ whispered Sykes.
‘A diversion. We set up one of your time pencils. Get it ready here, inch forward, leave it at the wire, then get back to the others. Boom – the explosive detonates, the enemy’s confused. Mac’s section take out the MG post, we disable the gun, get one or two of the crew, then bugger off.’
Sykes nodded. ‘Sounds good to me.’ He delved into his pack, pulled out a cartridge of HE No. 2, then a tin of detonators. He fixed a detonator into the top of the cartridge, then produced a time pencil.
When he was ready, he tapped Tanner’s shoulder and they began inching forward. Every footstep made Tanner wince, but he kept reminding himself that a German gun crew wouldn’t hear that fifty yards away – and most likely not even when they were closer than that. It was late – nearly midnight. Only one or two of the men would probably be awake, and even though someone would be on guard, that didn’t mean they were expecting British troops to appear.
As they reached the wire, a German machine-gun opened fire, a sudden brrp that cut the night apart, tracer flashing low across the desert away to the right. Tanner’s heart hammered. Was the aim wide? McAllister hadn’t returned fire. Good lad. Then another burst, followed by German voices – and the machine-gunner was firing in a wide arc. Now the Bren returned fire, and was joined by another.
‘Damn it!’ Tanner grabbed Sykes’s shoulder as a flare pistol was fired.
‘I’m going to throw it.’ Sykes threw back his arm and hurled the stick of explosive.
Tanner heard the flare hiss into the air. ‘Chuck a packet of Nobel’s, Stan.’ He cocked his MP40. The flare burst and crackled, and suddenly the desert was lit by a milky white glow. Tanner glanced back towards the others, now lying on the deck – they’re all right – then saw the packet of Nobel’s thirty yards ahead, and opened fire. Bullets burst from the gun. One second, two seconds, three seconds. Nothing. ‘Bugger it,’ he muttered, frantically pulling the magazine out and fumbling in his pack for another, but before he had put the second in, Sykes had lobbed a grenade. After a moment, it exploded, followed by a second, larger detonation. There was a burst of livid orange flame, a man cried out, and now the MG was turning its attention towards them, tracer flashing over them, bullets whizzing above their heads. Tanner glanced across and saw the low profile of his men moving forward. He felt for his wire cutters and, lying on the ground, began slicing at the wire in front of him – just a single coil. Easy. Another explosion as the HE detonated, then two more. Mines? Tanner ducked as sand and grit showered down on them, then felt for the last piece of wire and snapped it. Away to their left, another MG fired, then rifles too.
‘Stan? You all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘On three we dash for the gun, all right?’
Sykes nodded.
Tanner waited for the flare to die. ‘Sod it, let’s go!’ He scrambled to his feet, machine-guns still chattering. A stumble, a trip. Falling to his knees, then up again, forward, and as another flare burst into magnesium brightness he was standing by the gun, and looking down at three Germans cowering in the dug-out scrape.
‘Perfe
ct timing,’ said Sykes, breathlessly, beside him.
Tanner jumped down into the scrape and roughly pulled the first man to his feet. ‘Get up!’ he said. They stood, crouching, hands half raised. The machine-gun to the right had stopped, but the Spandau to the left was still firing, mostly too high. Someone was shouting further ahead, and wild shots were being fired into the night, as Tanner and Sykes shoved the three men clear of the gun.
‘Get going, Stan!’ said Tanner. One man groaned nearby; another, he saw, was dead. Taking a grenade from his belt, he pulled out the pin, shoved it down the barrel of the gun, and ran forward. A couple of seconds later, the grenade blew and the gun rocked back, the end of the barrel splayed.
The flare fizzled out as they began to run back, the three prisoners in front of them. ‘To the others!’ he hissed at Sykes, as they ran, half crouching.
‘Where are they? I can’t see!’ said Sykes. A machine-gun was still firing intermittent bursts, the odd rifle shot cracked out and then another flare went up.
‘Hit the ground, Stan!’
They dived, pushing the prisoners down with them. The flare burst and crackled, showering them once again with white light.
‘Very good of ’em,’ said Sykes. ‘Now we can see the others.’ He pointed towards the rising ground where they were prostrate, just thirty yards away. As light flooded the line, McAllister, Braithwaite and Lewis opened up with the Brens once more, while the others were firing their rifles.
Tanner looked back. It was hard to see much: some wire, some minefield signs, tracer, but beyond that nothing, just inky darkness. Outposts only. A few guns, widely spaced MG posts, but not much more. But it was time to get the hell out.
The flare died, and he scrambled up, yanking the prisoners to their feet, and forcing them in a low crouch towards the others.
‘There you are, sir,’ said McAllister. ‘And with some fresh Jerries too.’
‘Come on,’ said Tanner. ‘Let’s go. Mac, Ron, Taff – cover us with the Brens, moving back in turn.’
They began to retreat, still crouching, hugging the edge of the rising ground to their left, with bursts of Bren fire, but the enemy had not put up another flare, and as they melted into the darkness, the firing died away. ‘All boys, hold your fire,’ Tanner called.
They were standing tall now, jogging with the rising escarpment on their left. Suddenly one of the prisoners made a run for it, veering wildly away from them, but Lieutenant Shopland ran after him and brought him down. ‘Get up,’ he snarled, grabbing the man’s collar.
‘Nein – nein! Scheiße!’ cried the man, as Shopland shoved him back towards the others.
Twelve hundred yards from the enemy wire, the desert seemed vast and empty once more. Tanner blinked, his eyes getting used to the night again. Shapes were becoming clearer, the men more defined. Nearly there, he thought, recognizing the shape of a lone rise in the ground, like a wedge sticking up, just ahead. And then there they were, the three trucks, just as they had left them – how long before? Half an hour? An hour?
The men began to chatter – they’d all made it. Tanner knew that release of tension well. He felt it now, the adrenalin coursing through him, his body still alert. But they were not back yet.
‘Keep it down, boys,’ he said. ‘We’ve still got to get back through our own lines. One prisoner in each truck and let’s go.’
Tanner leaped into the front of his Bedford, the engines coughed into life, and they were on their way, following the route they had come, the night now silent but for their three-truck patrol as the rubber tyres sped over the gravelly ground.
A small hold-up at the British wire, and then they found the tracks and were through. Tanner breathed a sigh of relief: he’d known the gaps to be closed while he’d been out on patrol. But not tonight. He wiped a sleeve across his brow, took off his tin helmet and lit a cigarette. A Pak 75 anti-tank gun destroyed, three prisoners taken, and not a single man down. He was pleased. Mission accomplished.
Around a hundred and fifty miles away, as the crow flew, Tanja Zanowski awoke, and turned towards Alex, lying beside her silently – so silently that she leaned closer to make sure he was breathing. He was. She could hear him – and smell him, for that matter: the rather sour whiff of alcohol, which was unsurprising, considering the wine and whisky he had drunk. She had encouraged it.
Was now the moment? She lay on her back and sighed heavily. She could feel tears building behind her eyes. It was getting hard to know what was reality and what was part of the charade. She was sure she was falling for Alex, but she had been instructed to become his lover. The day before, when he had so nearly caught her red-handed, she had been horrified to see him but her heart had quickened with joy too. Had that been real happiness when she had embraced him? Or had it been part of the act? She rubbed her eyes. And tonight they’d had another lovely evening. She’d enjoyed being with him – but at the same time she’d been hoping he’d get tight, so that he would sleep more heavily and she could look through his briefcase. It was a photograph she had seen him hurriedly put away yesterday morning. She had got a glimpse, not enough to see clearly who it was, but she was convinced it had been of Artus. If she could just find out who Artus was…
She knew the briefcase was in Alex’s living room on the armchair. All she had to do was slip out of bed, walk in, open the catch and look. It would take – what? A minute? Maybe less.
Maybe they were both acting. Maybe Alex was pretending he had seen nothing, just as she was pretending that there was nothing for him to be suspicious about. She leaned her arm across her forehead and closed her eyes. I don’t want it to be like this.
She had signalled Cobra early that morning – after leaving Alex and before going to work: ‘British intelligence knows of Axis spy operation in Cairo. Please send instructions.’ A reply had come through almost immediately: ‘Has Operation Cobra been compromised?’ Not yet, Tanja had transmitted by return. ‘Only contact if information of vital importance,’ had come Cobra’s second reply. But that was hardly a new instruction – that was the golden rule of espionage, drummed into her during her training. Neither Orca nor Artus had tried to make contact that day, but she dreaded they would. She was tempted to lie – after all, her whole life felt like one – and tell them Cobra had ordered them to keep silent for a while, but perhaps that was too obviously false. They had already begun to doubt her. One wrong move and she would be dead. They would kill her, she knew, just as they had killed Aladdin. Artus had meant what he had said.
She shuddered, goose-bumps prickling her skin despite the heat. She was dead if she was caught by the British; dead if she tried to trick Orca and Artus. Not for the first time a wave of despair swept over her. She felt so trapped. Could she confess to Alex? To the British Secret Intelligence Service? Offer to work for them instead? But the risk seemed so great. I’m damned.
Damned unless I find out who Artus and Orca are. And only a few steps away she might find part of the answer. But if Alex wakes … The thought terrified her, not because it would lead to her arrest but because it would mean losing him. She had lost so much already – and her feelings for him were not an act. I love him, she thought, but by looking in his case, she would betray him.
She leaned over him again, then ran her hands over his cheek and through his hair. He did not move. He must be asleep. She moved away from him, slid her legs off the bed and padded into the living room. Darkness. She stood there for a moment, then switched on the light and waited. Would he come through? A minute passed, then another. There was the case – within touching distance. The flat was still. She glanced back at the bedroom. No sign of Alex stirring, no indication that he was lying there, secretly watching her, had been awake all along.
A deep breath, and then she was standing over the chair, one hand on the leather handle, fingers at the metal catch. Suddenly a screech. What was that? She recoiled, her heart pounding. Another screech. A catfight. It’s only a catfight. Outside somewhere. Tanja gasped, her
hand to her brow. She listened again, but Alex was still asleep. Blissfully asleep. She stood over the briefcase again, felt for the clasp, prised it open and lifted the leather flap. Inside were just a few papers, and a buff folder. She pulled it out and there was the photograph she had been hoping for: a head-and-shoulders shot. Quickly she put it back and scanned the papers inside the folder. ‘Suspect has been seen…’; ‘Interrogation of Suspect …’ A name, a name. Where the hell was the name? And then she saw it. Eslem Mustafa.
She swallowed, her heart thudding so hard she thought it would burst. Carefully, she put the folder back between the sheets of paper where she had found it and, with trembling fingers, shut the clasp, then took another deep breath.
Eslem Mustafa. She switched off the light, left the living room and slid back into bed.
14
It was Saturday, 29 August, and they had been invited for a brew at the front with an anti-tank gun crew from 2nd Rifle Brigade. Much of A Company had been out on patrol work at various stages of the night, but as Tanner and his men had returned through the wire, they had been invited to join the Riflemen for some char.
‘A cuppa before the flies come out,’ said the sergeant, cheerily.
‘Go on, sir,’ said Brown, beside him. ‘I’m gasping.’
‘Thanks,’ said Tanner. The sun was rising behind them, the desert lightening rapidly, as they parked the Bedford. At the back of the gun scrape, men were sitting around two four-gallon flimsies, one full of sand and burning petrol, the other filled with near boiling water.
‘So what d’you think then, sir?’ said the sergeant, who had introduced himself as Albert. ‘We heard a rumour that Rommel was going to attack three nights back.’
Tanner shrugged. ‘Any night now, I’d say. When’s the full moon? Tomorrow?’
‘Definitely tomorrow,’ said Hepworth.
‘Then tonight or the next two nights, I reckon.’ Tanner clapped his hands and rubbed them together. ‘I hope they do come through here. Let’s give ’em a spanking.’
Hellfire (2011) Page 22