Vaughan had decided he had better take a look for himself, so had managed to make his way through their own minefield, across no man’s land, and then decided to risk driving outside the marked lanes. Speeding up the edge of Moon, dodging past a number of ambulances and other supply vehicles, he stopped by a column of Shermans and Crusaders from 2nd Armoured Brigade and learned that two squadrons of the Rutland Yeomanry had been all but destroyed as they had tried to force their way out of the enemy minefields. Shells and mortars were whistling over with some regularity, eruptions of sand, dust and grit bursting into the air, while shells from their own artillery and the drone of bombers overhead added to the din and the yellow cloud of smoke and dust.
Pressing on, he reached the Minefield Task Force, which had ground to a halt. Sappers were widening the existing lanes, but a major, yelling at him over the din, told him that pushing on through the minefield would be impossible until darkness fell once more. He had then seen men from the Yorks Rangers and, having been directed towards A Company, had found Peploe and Tanner. Seeing him driving slowly forward, they had waved and called him over.
He had not recognized them at first, so covered were they with dust. It was as though a sack of flour had been flung over them. Their voices were hoarse, too.
‘Amazing thing about vetch.’ Peploe had grinned. ‘It’s only a scraggy bush but it makes you feel a hell of a lot safer when you’re behind it.’
‘Shelling’s not too bad,’ said Tanner. ‘We keep telling ourselves that the desert’s a bloody big place and there’s still lots of space.’
‘Any casualties?’ Vaughan asked.
‘A few,’ admitted Peploe. ‘Ones and twos. But they’ll soon mount up. What’s the news?’
‘Not entirely sure, to be honest,’ Vaughan told him. ‘That’s why I’ve come up to see you – to find out. Broadly speaking, the infantry seems to have got through the minefields all right, but not the armour.’
‘Jack went up ahead earlier,’ said Peploe. ‘You’re worried the enemy is in greater depth than we thought, aren’t you?’
‘Too bloody right,’ said Tanner. ‘Once we finally get through these minefields, there’s still plenty of infantry well dug in, as well as anti-tank screens. And they’re Eyeties up ahead, not Jerries, and fighting hard, I’d say.’
‘Well, it’s good to see you chaps still in one piece,’ said Vaughan.
‘Yes – thank God the enemy hasn’t counter-attacked,’ said Peploe.
‘Maybe the fog of war has something to do with it,’ suggested Vaughan. He had been glad to leave the front line and return to Tac HQ.
It was four p.m. and reports from the ADCs and the various units in the field had been reaching Tac HQ throughout the day and painted a fairly consistent picture. It seemed the infantry were between one and two thousand yards short of the Oxalic objective, but had crossed the enemy minefields. The armour had had less success – not a single lane had been completely cleared, and what small amount of armour had got clear of the minefields had been badly mauled. The southern thrust – the secondary attack – had been even less successful. Despite this, and rather to Vaughan’s surprise, Montgomery seemed reasonably pleased.
‘I said it was going to be a tough fight,’ he observed, ‘and so it is proving.’ However, with the enemy apparently showing no stomach for a counter-attack, he saw no reason why a renewed assault should not begin right away. There was, after all, enough fog over the battlefield to cover their advance.
*
For Tanner and the Yorks Rangers, it had been a frustrating day. Smoke and dust had hung on the windless air. Above them, aircraft could be heard roaring over, followed by the whistle and boom of bombs, while shelling from both sides continued incessantly. Occasionally small arms chattered ahead, and brief glimpses of the battlefield could be seen as the haze thinned. Stretcher-bearers picked their way through the minefields, collecting the dead and wounded.
At four thirty Peploe had gone to Battalion HQ to confer with Colonel Vigar, and Sykes had joined Tanner. The men were spread out either side of the Sun track, their carriers, for the time being, abandoned. Their positions had been fortified with sandbags. Each man had been given ten sacks each, which they could fill whenever they were stationary and place around themselves. It wasn’t much, but better than nothing.
‘If only we could bloody see the enemy,’ said Tanner. ‘We’re sat here in the middle of the sodding battle, but there’s sod all for us to have a go at.’
‘At least we’re still alive,’ said Sykes.
‘That’s true,’ admitted Tanner. ‘I wasn’t convinced I would be twelve hours ago.’ He caught a whiff of food on the air. ‘Christ, I’m hungry,’ he said. He realized he’d not eaten anything since the battle began.
‘I’m hungry and parched,’ said Sykes. ‘Not a single bleedin’ brew-up all day.’
Tanner felt in his pack. A small tin of bully beef, hard-tack biscuits and some chocolate. He opened the tin with his clasp knife. A waft of processed meat drifted up to his nose. ‘I’m not sure I’m that hungry after all,’ he said. He took a mouthful, but it tasted strange.
‘You’ve swallowed too much dust, mate,’ said Sykes.
Peploe reappeared.
‘We’re about to attack again,’ he said, squatting beside them.
‘In broad daylight?’ said Tanner.
‘Yes. The orders are for 2nd Armoured Brigade to push forward regardless. There are enough tracks now for them to follow. There’s a low feature a thousand yards beyond the edge of the minefields that’s been christened Kidney Ridge. That’s their new objective.’
‘And what about us?’
‘We keep sticking to the sappers like glue. They’re to get going again behind the advance.’
Soon after, the mass of tanks and armour roared into life. Belching fumes, the tanks began trundling and squeaking away. Either side of them, fresh companies of Highlanders were also moving forward. And then a piper struck up, the reedy sound clearly heard over the din of battle.
‘Look at them,’ said Sykes. ‘Calm as you bloody well like.’
They reminded Tanner of the figures in a film he had seen as a boy of the Tommies walking across no man’s land at the Somme, clutching their bayoneted rifles, distinctive helmets on their heads. Twenty-six years on, and we’re doing the same thing.
They continued to watch as the Highlanders pressed forward. Occasionally a man would drop, but the infantrymen kept going, finally disappearing into the smoke and haze. Even after they had vanished from view, the haunting dirge from the pipes could still be heard.
Vaughan had sensed that trouble might be brewing. Earlier in the day, Briggs had been complaining about the suicidal nature of the task facing his tanks, and later General Gatehouse, commanding 10th Armoured Division in the southern corridor, had told him that he feared Montgomery was expecting too much. A conversation with General Freyberg a short while later confirmed his impression that tensions were mounting between the armour and the infantry.
‘I’m not sure about the tankmen’s offensive spirit, I’m afraid,’ the New Zealand commander had told him. ‘Gatehouse is a bit of an old woman. A couple of Shermans brew up and he pulls ’em back.’
Vaughan had reported this to the chief and to General de Guingand, but Montgomery had seemed unfazed. Despite the renewed battle raging both in the north and the south, he had retired to bed at his normal time, just before ten o’clock.
De Guingand, however, had not been quite so unperturbed, and had remained at Tac HQ rather than heading back to Burg El Arab. In and around the map lorry, as reports began to arrive, the ADCs smoked incessantly. De Guingand was pacing back and forth. Every time a new message arrived, everyone sat up expectantly, watching de Guingand as he snatched the slip of paper from one of the signals clerks and read the missive. They could hear the battle – aircraft, small arms, the whistle of shells, explosions – just beyond their encampment. Vaughan had watched it unfolding from the entran
ce of the tent: dull flashes flickering and pulsing across the horizon. He could smell it too, smoke, fumes and cordite drifting from the west.
A picture soon began to emerge, and it was hardly encouraging. It seemed that, in the northern corridor, the 2nd Armoured Brigade had hit a number of mines and was still struggling to reach Oxalic. In the southern corridor, 8th Armoured Brigade had been forced to pull back across the Miteiriya Ridge and had then been hammered by Stukas, which had destroyed much of their fuel and ammunition, and had left twenty trucks blazing. Not only was progress limited but the congestion was getting worse. Just after midnight, Vaughan read a signal from 10th Armoured Division: Complete chaos. Southern corridor is like a badly organized car park at an immense race meeting held in a dust bowl.
At two thirty a.m. de Guingand took a call from Lumsden, X Corps commander.
‘Damn it all,’ he said, once the call had finished. ‘Bloody Gatehouse! He wants to call off 10th Armoured Division’s attack for the night. Lumsden wanted to check before giving him the authority.’
‘What did you tell him, sir?’ asked Poston, the senior ADC.
‘Told him to keep going for the moment. Apparently, they’re losing lots of tanks and Gatehouse thinks he should pull them all back behind the Miteiriya Ridge.’
De Guingand stood in the doorway at the back of the map lorry, chewing his lip and thinking hard. Eventually he said, ‘I think we need to wake the chief. Vaughan, go and get Leese. Poston, put a call through to X Corps HQ and get Lumsden. I’m calling a conference for three thirty a.m.’
Vaughan hurried the five hundred yards along the coast to the neighbouring encampment where XXX Corps had their headquarters. Like Montgomery, General Leese had gone to bed and now had to be woken. He was not pleased.
‘Bloody armour,’ he muttered, when he emerged, wearing trousers, a pullover and a sheepskin jacket. ‘It’s all right for the infantry to get themselves killed but as soon as a few tanks start brewing up, the armour wants to pull back.’ He looked at Vaughan. ‘Come on, Major, let’s go and have this show-down.’
The Army Commander was already up and dressed by the time they reached Tac HQ, at around three twenty. Sitting on a stool in the map lorry he greeted Leese cheerfully enough.
‘Oliver,’ he said, ‘sorry to have to wake you, but Freddie’s done absolutely the right thing. We need to nip this in the bud, and I’m the only man who can do it.’
Lumsden arrived soon after, looking exhausted, and was immediately taken to the map lorry. With John Poston and two of the other ADCs, Vaughan waited outside on the sand, listening to snippets of the discussion: Lumsden describing the terrible congestion, the hulks of burning Shermans, the lack of space to manoeuvre, and Leese snorting with derision – ‘But you’ve got the whole bloody desert.’
‘No, we haven’t, Oliver, we’ve got six lanes eight yards wide and I’ve lost more than forty tanks already.’
‘And how many tanks does Eighth Army boast?’ said Montgomery. ‘Hm?’
‘That’s hardly the point, sir,’ said Lumsden.
‘It is the point, Herbert. At least a thousand. I never said this would be easy. Victories cannot be won without loss of life and equipment. The reason I have waited until now to attack is because I wanted to be sure of overwhelming superiority in numbers. Now, I know what I saw when I first came out here: a beaten army that had become far too used to throwing in the towel and falling back at the first sign of trouble. It was commanded by men who were frightened of building up too much of a butcher’s bill. I told you then that it was an attitude that had to be stopped in its tracks. No more retreats, I told you, and no more bellyaching.’
‘But, sir—’ interjected Lumsden.
‘No buts, Herbert,’ said Montgomery. ‘These are my orders: you will tell Gatehouse to keep pressing forwards. We need our armour out of the minefields and into the open. The more you keep moving, the less of a problem there will be with congestion. I want to hear no more bellyaching from you or Gatehouse or any of your commanders, d’you understand? If you haven’t got the steel to drive your men forward, tell me now and I’ll have you replaced without delay with someone who has. Clear?’
Crystal, Vaughan thought.
29
By the morning of 26 October – the third since the battle began – the Yorks Rangers’ role as part of the Minefield Task Force was over, and the battalion had at last been pulled back to the comparative safety of what had been no man’s land. A Company’s casualties had been light – just sixteen dead and wounded – but the men were all exhausted and filthy and in need of a decent feed. Tanner reckoned he’d had less than two hours’ sleep since it had begun; for the past two nights and the previous day, they had been involved in traffic control, helping to feed the flow of armour that was now being funnelled through the ever-widening gaps. Tanner had hated it. Fighting a battle when you could shoot back was one thing; standing amid the dust and mayhem directing tanks while being shelled and mortared was quite another.
Still, as Sykes had again reminded him, they were still alive and the battle did seem to be going in the right direction, even if more slowly than perhaps they would have liked. By the afternoon, Tanner’s mood had improved considerably. He’d had a nap and, despite the flies, had managed to eat some hot food and drink several cups of tea, scrounged some more cigarettes and even managed to wash his face with the water brought up by the B Echelon trucks.
Peploe had been called to see Colonel Vigar, but the rest of Headquarters Company were now beside the company command carrier, cleaning weapons and preparing yet another brew. To the north, they could hear heavy fighting, but it had been impossible to tell what was happening. Reams of bombers had been over, pummelling some kind of enemy formation or position, Tanner guessed, but he was conscious that the others barely seemed to notice. It was amazing, he thought, how quickly they had come to rely on the Desert Air Force, but they were an integral part of their firepower. He wondered how Flynn and his squadron were getting on. The RAF really had been magnificent, even in the days leading up to the battle.
‘What do you think we’ll be doing now, sir?’ asked Phyllis.
‘God knows.’
‘What about that attack we thought we’d be doing last night?’ said Brown.
‘It was cancelled, Browner, remember?’ said Hepworth.
‘Maybe they’ll want us to do it tonight instead,’ said Phyllis.
‘I’d put good money on it,’ said Sykes.
‘Then it’s bound to happen,’ said Tanner. ‘Stan never bets unless he knows his money’s safe.’
‘It might, it might not,’ said Hepworth. ‘Generals can never make up their bloody minds. I’ve noticed that. The plans are always changing.’
‘That’s because nothing ever goes to plan in the first place, Hep,’ said Sykes.
‘You’re telling me,’ muttered Hepworth. ‘All battles are chaos and confusion.’
‘I’m confused,’ said Phyllis. ‘To be honest, I haven’t really got the faintest idea what’s going on. I suppose we must be winning, but all I know is that I’ve been shelled for three days and three nights and I’ve still not fired a single shot.’
Peploe was heading towards them with Vaughan.
‘Here’s a man who can put you in the picture.’ Tanner stood up. ‘Hello, sir. How’s the Army Commander?’
‘Quite chipper,’ said Vaughan.
‘Phyllis here is feeling confused,’ said Tanner. ‘He thinks we’re winning but he’s worried because so far he hasn’t fired his rifle.’
‘I think we’re winning,’ said Vaughan. ‘Slowly but surely.’
‘I told him you might be able to put us in the picture, sir.’
‘Well, first of all, you’ll be using your rifle soon enough, Phyllis,’ said Vaughan.
‘We’re putting in an attack tonight,’ said Peploe.
‘Bloody brilliant,’ said Hepworth, smacking the ground in disappointment.
‘You were right, then,�
�� Brown said to Sykes.
‘Told you,’ said Tanner. ‘As before?’
‘Yes,’ said Vaughan. ‘There’s a low feature up ahead called Kidney Ridge. There’s a shallow hollow to the north we’re calling Woodcock, and two to the south, Snipe and Grouse. The KRRC are to take Woodcock, 2nd RB Snipe.’
‘And we’re to take Grouse,’ added Peploe. ‘And then hold it with our screen of six-pounders while the armour pours through tomorrow at dawn.’
‘Good,’ said Tanner. ‘It’s about time we got to have a go at Jerry.’
‘Is it, sir?’ said Hepworth. ‘Wouldn’t it be more fun to be taken out of the line?’
‘Hep, you know you don’t mean that.’ Tanner grinned.
‘I bloody do, sir.’
Tanner cuffed the back of his head. ‘Anyway, sir,’ he said, ‘turning to Vaughan, ‘what is the latest situation?’
‘The Aussies are doing really well,’ he said. ‘They’ve captured Point Twenty-nine to the north of here and we’re hoping they’ll press on towards the coast.’
‘There’s been a lot of fighting up there this afternoon,’ said Sykes.
‘The RAF have certainly been giving someone a hammering,’ added Tanner.
‘It’s been quite a big counter-attack by the panzers,’ said Vaughan. ‘Fortunately they haven’t got very far, though. The Aussies still had Point Twenty-nine a short while ago.’
‘What about in the south?’ asked Tanner.
‘That’s been called off,’ said Vaughan. ‘Thirteen Corps are containing and nothing more at the moment. In the southern corridor, they’re making small gains, but orders have just been issued to pull some units out of that part of the line.’
‘Some blokes get all the luck,’ said Hepworth.
‘Pulled back for the final stage of the battle,’ added Vaughan. ‘The Kiwis, 10th Armoured and your old mob, 7th Armoured. They’re going to spearhead the attack.’
‘Not quite so cushy, Hep,’ said Sykes.
‘So it’s you chaps and the Aussies who are leading the main drive at the moment,’ said Vaughan. ‘Or, rather, you will be as of tonight.’
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